On a sunny Friday afternoon in a park overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir in Los Angelesabout 30 folks—together with three in costume as Uncle Sam, Darth Vader, and Elsa from Frozen—gathered to listen to the primary official stump speech of Dan Greaney, candidate for the 2028 US presidential election.
“My fellow Individuals,” Greaney started, standing at a lectern in entrance of a row of American flags flapping in a light-weight breeze. After this opening, he added, “Yeah, let’s go together with that. It’s a basic.”
That self-aware little apart is the form of factor you’d anticipate from a veteran TV author who has labored on The Simpsons since its golden period within the Nineties. Other than penning basic episodes like “Summer season of 4 Ft. 2″ and “King-Dimension Homer,” Greaney can also be recognized for writing “Bart to the Future,” a flash-forward episode, initially aired in 2000, by which Lisa Simpson is the newly inaugurated US president and fighting a monetary mess left behind by her predecessor. “As you already know, we have inherited fairly a price range crunch from President Trump,” she explains.
Due to that joke, Greaney is commonly credited with predicting the true Trump’s unlikely rise to the White Home. “It was a warning to America,” he informed The Hollywood Reporter early within the 2016 election cycle. “It was pitched as a result of it was in keeping with the imaginative and prescient of America going insane.”
For months now, Greaney has been leaning into his “Prophet” alter ego, posting Instagram movies of himself predicting the downfall of Trump and his allies in an Previous Testomony-style grey beard and wig. On Friday, nonetheless, he wore the extra standard swimsuit and tie of a politician working for workplace. And his message was earnest.
“It is fairly ridiculous for me to be working for president,” he stated. “It is the form of factor {that a} cartoon dad may do—anyone like, you already know, Peter Griffin,” he stated with a smile, referencing the patriarch of Household Man somewhat than Homer Simpson. But, Greaney went on to say, he was moved to face up for the values that he believes most Individuals nonetheless share. “I believe democracy is beneath assault, and in some ways (has) been demolished by a rogue Supreme Court docket, by a lawless president, and by the cliques of billionaires that they work for,” he informed the group, largely made up of pals and colleagues in leisure.
“It isn’t a joke,” Greaney stated of his marketing campaign, regardless of his lengthy profession in comedy going all the best way again to a stint as president of the Harvard Lampoon. (He has additionally labored as a journalist and practiced regulation.) “Comedy is not nearly laughter,” he continued. “Comedy is about fact. And at The Simpsonsone of many issues all of us tried to do was to say the reality about American life, to look behind the humbug and hoopla and say the reality about America with love and humor in a manner that individuals noticed and related to, and that’s what I hope to do right here.”
“So, sure, it’s a bit absurd, however it’s not a joke,” he reiterated. “And, in reality, it is an act of conscience.”
Greaney concluded his personal remarks by saying, “I invite you all to affix my motion and create an America that works for all, together with Darth Vader.”
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